Perplexity Doubles Down on AI Shopping with PayPal Partnership
Perplexity is turning up the heat in the AI race, taking on Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google with a major new move: a new strategic partnership with PayPal to supercharge agentic commerce on its Perplexity Pro platform.
This Perplexity-PayPal Partnership puts Perplexity at the forefront of chat-powered shopping, where AI doesn’t just recommend – it completes the entire transaction. Starting this summer in the U.S., users will be able to buy products, book travel, and purchase tickets instantly using PayPal or Venmo – directly within the chat.
PayPal will power the transaction layer, handling payment processing, shipping, tracking, and invoicing, all within the chat flow. With passkey-enabled one-click checkout, the process is designed to be fast, frictionless, and secure.
One query. One click. Full checkout.
Key Takeaways
- Users can now book travel, buy products, and get tickets directly within a chat using PayPal or Venmo – no redirects, no extra steps.
- The partnership enables end-to-end commerce, with PayPal handling checkout, shipping, tracking, and invoicing – all inside the Perplexity Pro interface.
- This move marks a shift from AI that suggests to AI that acts, turning natural-language queries into completed transactions.
- Backed by PayPal’s global security tools and user base, the feature launches in the U.S. this summer, with broader expansion to follow.
Perplexity-PayPal Partnership to Turn AI Chats into Commerce-Ready Conversations
On May 14, 2025, Perplexity announced that it had selected PayPal to power transactions within its AI assistant platform. This move signals a major shift in how users will interact with artificial intelligence, moving beyond simply getting answers to actually completing purchases, bookings, and other tasks directly within a chat. The partnership is launching in the U.S. during the summer of 2025 and will allow users of Perplexity Pro to buy products, book travel, or get tickets with a single query and a click, using PayPal or Venmo.
This Perplexity-PayPal partnership matters because it blends the immediacy and intelligence of AI with the trusted infrastructure of PayPal’s payment ecosystem. When users ask Perplexity questions like “Find me a hotel in Chicago under $200 next weekend,” the system will not only offer a list of options – it can also handle the actual booking, with no need to visit another site. That’s a powerful shift. What used to be a multi-step process involving search, clicks, redirects, and entering payment details is being condensed into a seamless experience driven by natural language.
According to PayPal CEO Alex Chriss, the goal is to “make it easy and secure to shop right in the chat when inspiration strikes.” This isn’t just a convenience upgrade – it marks the emergence of what Perplexity calls “agentic commerce,” a term that essentially means giving AI the ability to not just provide information, but to act on it. Imagine saying, “Get me two tickets for tonight’s show,” and that being the end of the process. Perplexity’s AI can now respond with availability, prices, and a simple PayPal checkout link – all inside the same conversation.
At the heart of this Perplexity-PayPal partnership is trust. Perplexity’s CEO, Aravind Srinivas, has repeatedly emphasized the company’s focus on accuracy and reliability. Choosing PayPal, with its global reputation for secure transactions and fraud protection, supports that mission. “We share a vision for how important trust is in the age of AI,” Srinivas said. PayPal brings robust features like tokenized payments, passkey authentication, and global wallet support into the Perplexity experience, ensuring users don’t have to sacrifice security for convenience.
This move comes at a time when both companies are rapidly evolving. Perplexity, which handles over 780 million queries per month, recently raised $500 million in funding and is now valued at around $14 billion. It’s positioning itself as more than a search tool – it’s aiming to be a full-featured digital assistant that doesn’t just suggest but acts. That makes PayPal an ideal partner. With over 430 million active accounts in nearly 200 markets, PayPal brings scale, infrastructure, and user familiarity.
For users, this change means fewer steps between intention and action. Ask a question, get an answer, make a decision, and complete the task – all within the same interface. No more copying links, switching apps, or re-entering payment info. And it’s not just about shopping. Travel bookings, ticket purchases, and potentially even services like food delivery or ride-hailing could eventually be handled through the same interface. PayPal’s integration enables Perplexity to plug into a broad range of commerce experiences, with shipping, invoicing, and tracking all included automatically.
For Perplexity, this opens up new business opportunities. It can now generate revenue from transactions – via booking fees, affiliate commissions, or partnerships with service providers – on top of any subscription income from its Pro users. And it gives the company a competitive edge over more traditional AI offerings that still rely on directing users elsewhere for transactions. In a crowded AI market, offering an end-to-end solution could be a key differentiator.
PayPal also stands to benefit. Embedding its payment tools into conversational interfaces allows it to stay relevant as digital interactions shift away from websites and apps toward chat-based environments. This kind of embedded commerce gives PayPal a front-row seat in the next generation of user interfaces. Instead of being an option on a checkout page, it becomes the checkout itself, built into the flow of conversation and powered by AI.
This development is part of a broader trend where AI isn’t just used to retrieve information but to take real-world actions. These systems are beginning to understand intent and context well enough to carry out tasks that previously required human follow-up. That might sound futuristic, but it’s already here in the form of services like this. It’s a step forward from the static search results or product listings that users are accustomed to.
There are still challenges to overcome. For now, the launch is limited to U.S. users. Expanding globally will take time, and integrating with regional payment systems, local regulations, and service providers won’t be simple. Convincing users to trust an AI with purchases will also be an ongoing effort, especially for high-stakes transactions like travel. While PayPal’s security tools help, users still need time to adjust to the idea of conversational commerce.
That said, the opportunity is clear. Once users see how much easier it is to act on a decision within the same conversation where it was made, habits will shift. And as more apps, services, and platforms open up to similar integrations, the idea of toggling between apps and websites for everyday tasks may soon feel outdated.
Looking ahead, Perplexity plans to expand the scope of its agents. The company envisions AI systems that can handle full-day planning: from finding a restaurant to booking a table, ordering a ride, and adding it all to your calendar. With the PayPal integration in place, those agents can now complete the transaction part of that journey, turning a chat into a complete digital assistant experience.
For now, though, the focus is on making the initial experience smooth and secure. When the feature launches this summer, users in the U.S. will be able to access a new kind of commerce – one that’s built into the way they already ask questions and make decisions. The simplicity and immediacy of buying directly from an AI chat may well set a new standard for what people expect from digital tools.
As Perplexity and PayPal continue to develop this integration, the line between asking and acting will blur. Conversations won’t just lead to answers – they’ll lead to outcomes. And with PayPal powering the back end, those outcomes will come with the speed and security users have come to expect. This isn’t just a new feature. It’s a preview of how digital commerce, AI, and trust-based infrastructure are coming together to redefine how we get things done.
About Perplexity
Perplexity AI, founded in December 2022 by Aravind Srinivas, Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, and Andy Konwinski, is a San Francisco–based generative AI–powered web search engine that synthesizes conversational answers with inline citations to web sources. The platform leverages leading large language models – including GPT-4.1, Claude, Gemini, and Grok – alongside its proprietary Sonar and R1 1776 engines to deliver real-time, accurate responses across its freemium web interface, mobile apps, and Chrome extension.
Since launch, Perplexity has raised over $665 million in funding, comprising $165 million by April 2024 and a $500 million round in June 2025 that valued the company at $14 billion, and counts investors like Jeff Bezos, NVIDIA, Databricks, Tobias Lütke, and Nat Friedman among its backers. Rapidly growing its user base, the company processed 780 million queries in May 2025, averaging 30 million daily, and continues to expand its AI capabilities with products like its upcoming Comet agentic browser.
About PayPal
PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments platform that enables digital money transfers and payment-processing services for consumers and merchants, with its headquarters in San Jose, California. Founded in December 1998 as Confinity by Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, and Luke Nosek, the company launched its first electronic payments service in 1999, went public in 2002, and was acquired by eBay later that year. As of 2023, PayPal serves over 426 million active accounts across more than 200 markets, processing $1.53 trillion in total payment volume, and features a portfolio of brands including Venmo, Honey, Zettle, and Xoom.
Employing around 27,200 people worldwide as of December 2023, PayPal reported net income of $4.25 billion on revenue of $29.8 billion for the fiscal year, reflecting its strong market position and ongoing growth. Following its 2015 spin-off from eBay, PayPal has continued to innovate under President and CEO Alex Chriss, integrating AI-driven fraud detection and rolling out new capabilities such as “Tap to Pay” on iPhones to enhance user accessibility and security.
Conclusion
Perplexity’s partnership with PayPal marks a turning point in how people interact with AI. Instead of just offering suggestions, Perplexity Pro can now follow through, completing purchases, bookings, and other transactions within the same conversation where the request begins. By bringing PayPal’s trusted infrastructure into the chat interface, the companies are streamlining commerce in a way that reduces friction and saves time.
This integration positions Perplexity to compete not just with other AI tools, but with entire categories of search, booking, and shopping platforms. It also opens new revenue streams and strengthens user engagement by keeping the entire experience in one place. For PayPal, it’s a way to stay central as digital interactions shift from websites and apps to AI-driven chats.
The feature launches in the U.S. this summer and could help set the tone for how digital assistants function going forward. As both companies refine this offering and expand its reach, users will likely come to expect more from the AI tools they rely on – not just answers, but results.
